Tears of a Sea Cow
Tears of a Sea Cow is the 34th episode of The Venture Bros. and is part of Season 3. Plot The episode begins with The Monarch and Dr. Girlfriend raiding the base of their new arch-enemy, Dr. Dugong, who appropriately resembles a manatee. The caper falls completely flat for The Monarch, who considers Dr. Dugong an ineffectual adversary (indeed, the Doctor seems only interested in talking about marine life). Dr. Girlfriend urges The Monarch to step up his half-hearted aggression, and suggests he visualize Dr. Dugong as The Monarch's preferred rival, Dr. Venture. However, this works too well as The Monarch simply strides up and kills his adversary by a bazooka to the face. This leaves the nefarious couple once again without a nemesis. Meanwhile, back at the Venture Compound, Hank, Dean and Dermott have the compound to themselves as Dr. Venture and Brock have gone to a Science Convention, where Dr. Venture plans to exhibit his dynamic new invention: The Boom Broom. Dermott and Hank plan to form a band, with Dermott on vocals, Hank on bass and H.E.L.P.eR. playing percussion through his internal system. Dean meanwhile is publishing the next version of his newspaper, which apparently only The Monarch and #21 actually read. Back at the cocoon, Dr. Girlfriend berates her husband over their declining standing in the Guild of Calamitous Intent due to The Monarch killing off his replacement "arches." Later, wandering the halls of his cocoon with #21 and #24, The Monarch laments the fact that he no longer enjoys supervilliany since Dr. Venture gave him the challenge he wanted. The trio decide to relive old times by doing an impromptu (and unauthorized) raid on his compound. Meanwhile, H.E.L.P.e.R.'s percussion music continues endlessly, much to the chagrin of the Venture boys. Unable to turn it off, they lock the hapless robot in the closet, but even that does not muffle the noise sufficiently. Hank and Dermott camp out on the compound lawn, while Dean tries to ignore the music. Finally, unable to take it any more, Dean orders H.E.L.P.e.R. to shut down all accessible sound systems, which has the side effect of disabling the audible components of the Venture Compound's security system, just as the marauding Monarch and his henchmen arrive. The compound's security lasers (silently) bombard the butterfly-themed baddies, blowing up the septic tank, nearly killing the Monarch, 21, and 24, and alerting the boys, who both think its aliens attacking again. Hank and Dean try to call Dr. Venture and Brock on their two-ways, but both of them do not answer (due to them both being asleep). #21 and #24 take cover in the hangar, while The Monarch slips inside the compound. Hank and Dermott are investigating the damage when the two henchmen spot them and give chase. #24 easily captures Dermott, whose presence is questioned by #24, having not seen Dermott before in the compound. Dermott first reveals that he is Hank's friend, but #24 doesn't believe him. Dermott follows up by claiming that he is Brock's long-lost son, but #24 states that's impossible because he caught Dermott so easily. Dermott explains he couldn't run because because of the lighter he stuck up his ass earlier, to which #24 then believes that Dermott is Hank's friend. Inside, The Monarch finds Dr. Venture's lab. He performs miscellaneous acts of sabotage and mischief, culminating in finding Venture's guard robot G.U.A.R.D.O. and having sex with it. Dean walks in on this, and The Monarch claims that he is trying to infect the robot with Chlamydia and then uses reverse psychology to convince Dean that reporting this perverted act to his father would be playing into the Monarch's diabolical scheme. The supervillain then gathers his clothes and sheepishly exits. At this time, Dr. Girlfriend realizes that The Monarch has broken his word and is probably out raiding the compound. When Tim-Tom and Kevin ask about his hatred for Dr. Venture, Dr. Girlfriend only states that Dr. Venture did "nothing worth destroying a career--a marriage" before she calls the henchmen to fly the Cocoon to the Compound to retrieve her husband. Meanwhile, #24 has convinced Dermott to also not tell Dr. Venture and Brock of their raid, by bribing him with Monarch weaponry. #21 calls a truce with Hank (mostly because he can't catch up to him) and tells Hank that he is just going through the motions of killing him because he thinks Hank is immortal. #21, after all, saw him die twice and then inexplicably turn up again. He then shoots Hank with a dart from his gun, which turns out to just be a tranquilizer. At this time, the Cocoon arrives and collects all of the villains. As it leaves, Hank wakes up from his tranquilizer attack, and subsequently buys into the theory that he is an immortal, like The Highlander. For the epilogue, the Cocoon is shown over the ocean, approaching The Monarch's latest nemesis, whom Dr. Girlfriend chose as a close alternate to Dr. Venture -- his brother, Jonas Venture Junior. The Cocoon rapidly approaches Spider Skull Island for their first encounter. Cultural references * The show's title is a reference to the song "Tears of a Clown" as made famous by Smokey Robinson & the Miracles and later covered by The English Beat. * The Monarch asks Dr. Dugong how much thalidomide his mother took. This "morning sickness" drug had the side effect of birth defects, giving the child flipper-like abbreviated appendages. * Dr. Dugong sounds very similiar to Jimmy Stewart. Jackson Publick stated on his livejournal that he intended the voice to sound like Larry Flynt. * Hank wants his band to be "the biggest thing since Eddie and the Cruisers." Eddie and the Cruisers is a movie based on a novel by P.F. Kluge about a fictitious rock band. * Dugong's secret lair is visually similar to Stromberg's base in the 007 film, The Spy Who Loved Me * Dr. Dugong's sole security system seems to consist of an antiquated robot, which strongly resembles a robot from the music video for Styx's song, "Mr. Roboto". The Monarch notices this and points it out. * Dermott, thinking #24 is an alien, defends himself by spitting and coughing in #24's direction, which he explains is an attempt to kill the invader by infecting him with his "earth germs." This is how the aliens are defeated in War of the Worlds. * Dermott mentions his "Gymkata" kick. Gymkata is an infamously terrible kung fu/gymnastics hybrid movie. * The discussion the Monarch has with Dean about tattling on him is highly reminiscent of the Emperor talking to Luke Skywalker from Return of the Jedi. * The Monarch quoting "playing video games, with a little plastic baby guitar." This is a reference to the popular series Guitar Hero and Rock Band. * When heading to the Venture compound in the flying Monarch Mobile, #21 asks "what is this, 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang?'" referring to the Ian Fleming novel of the same name which features flying racing cars circa 1920. * The Monarch claims that in vandalizing the Venture compound he will "suckle the teat of hate that nourished us like so much butterfly-themed Romulus and Remus," referring to the mythical founders of Rome who were suckled by a she-wolf. * While listening to a cassette player, Dermott claims that "no one goes in through my out door," referring to the Led Zeppelin album In Through the Out Door, which is likely the tape they were listening to, as Brock was shown to own the album in "Eeney, Meeney, Miney, Magic!" * Dean uses the phrase "do science" in reference to his plastic dinosaur experiments, echoing Dr. Paul Armstrong, protagonist of the 2004 comedy scifi film The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra. Connections to other episodes * G.U.A.R.D.O. was first seen in "Home Insecurity". It was later used by Jonas Jr. in his attack on Rusty in Return to Spider-Skull Island * #21 uses the alias of G. Viceroy, a combination of his first initial (Gary) and the supervillain name he suggested for himself in "Powerless in the Face of Death".Episode "Powerless in the Face of Death". * #21 reveals to Hank that he has personally seen Hank die "twice": one of these instances would be in the season one finale "Return to Spider-Skull Island", but it is not clear what the other time he is referring to. *Once again, the reason that the Monarch considers Dr. Venture his archenemy is unrevealed, and characters directly reference/poke fun at the lack of clear answers on the subject. *Dean previously mentioned that he makes his own homemade newspaper, "The Venture Home News", in the past episode, "Dr. Quymn, Medicine Woman".Episode "Dr. Quymn, Medicine Woman". * Hank's bass guitar was the gift given to him by Brock in "A Very Venture Christmas". * Dean is shown wearing a "speedsuit" but not the one that he and Dr. Venture were shopping for in "Hate Floats".Episode "Hate Floats". Production notes * One of the animation directors (Kimson Albert) has a "nickname" inserted into his credits. The nickname is an unusual line or word from the preceding episode. For "Tears of a Sea Cow" the credit reads Kimson "Weenis" Albert. * The working title of this episode was "Murder O'Clock". * The percussion beat that H.E.L.P.eR. is playing is the "Samba" beat from the Casio SA-21 synthesizer. References Tears of a Sea Cow